Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/34

xxx to everything like military matters. Harvey's own candid character, and the confidence so obviously reposed in him when he was intrusted with the care of the Prince and the Duke of York, forbid us to interpret the behaviour into any lukewarmness or indifference as to the issue; but Harvey, throughout his whole career, was a most peaceful man: he never had the least taste for literary controversy, and can scarcely be said to have replied to any of those who opposed his views; and in his indifference about the fight of Edge-hill he only further shows us that he was not Of those who build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun, And prove their doctrine orthodox By apostolic blows and knocks."

With his fine understanding and freedom from party and sectarian views of every kind, he probably saw that an appeal to arms was not the way for political right to be elicited, or for a sovereign to settle matters with his subjects. Harvey had certainly no turn for politics, and when we refer to Aubrey we find that the fight of Edge-hill was hardly ended before our anatomist had crept back into his shell, and become absorbed in the subjects that formed the proper business of his life. "I first saw him (Harvey) at Oxford, 1642, after Edge-hill fight," says our authority, "but was then too young to be acquainted with so great a doctor. I remember he came several times to our college (Trin.) to George Bathurst, B.D., who had a hen to hatch eggs in his chamber, which they opened dayly to see the progress and way of generation." The zealous political partisan would have found no leisure for researches like these in such stirring times as marked the